MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) announced Monday that a total of P17.69 billion has already been released since December for the recovery and rehabilitation of communities damaged by the outrage of the Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).
Yolanda, considered as one of strongest typhoon on record, left more than 6,200 dead and a total P39.8 billion in damages to both property and livelihood.
“True to the President’s word, the Administration has been working continuously to expedite the rehabilitation and recovery process for all communities destroyed by Yolanda. Relief operations—which commenced as soon as logistical bottlenecks had been cleared—have run full-throttle to ensure the safety and full recovery of Yolanda’s survivors,” said Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad.
The budget chief also cited the significant releases from the P17.7 billion. Among them are:
- P2.2 billion – National Housing Authority (NHA), for Permanent Housing Units in affected areas, specifically in the form of assistance to houses in “no-build” zones.
- P5.72 billion – Rehabilitation of government facilities
- P111.2 million – National Food Administration (NFA)
- P101.2 million – National Power Corporation
- P1.5 billion – National Transmission Corporation (TRANSCO)
- P77.01 million – Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), for restoring the lacal water systems in affected areas.
- P1 billion – Education and Health Services, which includes restoration of services in hospitals, regional health units, and barangay health units and provision of essential medicines.
- P2.01 billion – Local Government Services
- P2.87 billion – Agriculture and Fishery services, including the provision of rice and corn seeds, banca and fishing paraphernalia, and farm implements and fuel subsidies.
- P953.5 million – Provision of temporary employment for displaced families
- P1.88 billion – Food distribution and supplementary feeding activities
- P1.07 billion – Quick Response Funds
Abad said the provision of adequate shelter assistance is “one of the more critical components in long-term rehabilitation” of families whose houses were formerly situated in high-risk, disaster prone areas.
“Several of those who unfortunately perished during the super typhoon were living in very vulnerable areas. We want to prevent future calamities from reaching the scale of Yolanda’s tragic aftermath by rebuilding communities on safer ground,” Abad said.
The location of the beneficiaries for permanent housing will be determined by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
Abad also said that some of the more crucial releases made were directed towards the restoration of basic public services. This includes the rebuilding of power generation, distribution, and transmission systems, as well as the reestablishment of clean water supplies.
He said the fast restoration of these services was very crucial for the well-being of survivors.
“(They) are especially dependent on how quickly we could bring the power and water supply back up,” Abad noted.
Besides the P17.7 billion released for various infrastructure and services to the communities, Abad said the DBM had also rolled out a total of P3.1 billion in December for the immediate rehabilitation of the devastated Tacloban Airport.
“The rehabilitation and reconstruction of areas ravaged by Yolanda is already well-accounted for in the Philippine Development Plan, which is the administration’s medium-term strategy for bringing inclusive development to the country,” he said.
(with reports from Philippine Information Agency)